The only two new-ish films that blew me away this last year were Un prophète (which we glaringly haven't posted yet) and this film, Uncle Boonmee. I'm at a loss for words when it comes to this film. Apichatpong Weerasethakul builds a magical-realist world that would make Marquez blush. There's an umbilical cord to nature throughout the film that gets brutally cut, and all we're left with is a portable television in an antiseptic room. Ugh. I won't say any more, or I'd spoil things...but you gotta see this film. For God's sake, you gotta see it. It's that damn good.
From the Bangkok Post:
Not that it really needed another trophy. Still, it was a pleasant surprise when the Thai film Loong Boonmee Raluek Chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) won best picture - again, against most speculation - at the 5th Asian Film Awards on Monday night in Hong Kong.
After playing the dark horse and galloping away with the Palme d'Or last May at Cannes, Uncle Boonmee has attained the status of a pedestalled objet d'art, drawing admiration and varying degrees of perplexity from audiences around the world. Yet to win the prize that aims to represent the best of Asia, the film, which was the sole Thai representative in the event, still has a good reason to be proud.
Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul was cool and calm when he collected the trophy. "I'd like to thank Uncle Boonmee, who was alive a long time ago, for inspiring me to make the film," he said. "The technique of making cinema may be changing very fast, but to me, the core of cinema-making remains the same."
The Thai win further made the Asian Film Awards (AFA) an intriguing event. There was a talk, when AFA was introduced five years ago as part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, that this was the aspiration to create the "Oscars of Asia". The creme of Asian crop - from Iran to Kazakhstan, all the way to the Philippines and Japan - each year were handpicked into the final shortlists, and the awards were handed out in a red-carpeted ceremony studded with glamour, hungry paparazzi and slender shoulders of Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese stars (sometimes with Thai, Indonesian and Indian thrown in).
After five years, the AFA results turned out to be quite unpredictable - and many times in a good way. From the get-go, it was apparent to observers that the organisers fought to find a balance between commercial films and arthouse fares in the nomination, and though the shortlists appear to favour big budget movies, it was smaller, more independent titles that often walked away with the major trophies. This year, for instance, Uncle Boonmee was nominated alongside two successful Chinese films, the earthquake drama Tangshan dadizhen or Aftershock, and the pre-Communism cowboy saga Let the Bullets Fly, as well as the hit Japanese revenge flick Kokuhaku or Confessions, and a much acclaimed Korean drama, Shi or Poetry, which won Lee Chang-dong the best director kudos.
During the first few years, the AFA ceremony was broadcast live on Hong Kong television, and there was a talk that the sponsors were not exactly pleased that strange little films that the audience had never seen kept winning awards (the only blockbuster to win the best picture prize is the monster film Gwoemul or The Host). This year, the event was taped for later broadcast - though, again, the majority of viewers probably wouldn't have seen the crowned and curious beast from Thailand. (Uncle Boonmee, however, was already released in Hong Kong cinemas.)
The split personality of the AFA was quite entertaining to experience. This is an award show that gathers the largest number of Asian superstars - as presenters and nominees - and naturally comes with strong commercial prospects. When Korean singer Rain appeared here a few years back, the hall nearly crumbled from the shouts of his gathering fans. Tony Leung, one of Asia's most famous actors, has been the ambassador of the event, and this year, the presenters included such big names as Chow Yun Fat, Zhang Zhiyi, Aaron Kwok and more.
Meanwhile, the AFA's jury of international programmers, producers and critics have kept voting for arthouse offers that sometimes, like this year, seemed like an antithesis to the film industry that thrives on looks, hype and glamour; past winners, for instance, include the Chinese film Sanxia haoren or Still Life, and the Japanese film Tokyo Sonata, both are quite obscure to mainstream cinema-goers.
Then you have the problematic vastness and diversity of "Asia". Geographically, the AFA tries its best to cull the top films from as far as Iran - or like this year, Svet-Ake or The Light Thief from Kyrgyzstan was nominated for best cinematography. But as it happened, the hegemony remains with East Asia: China, Korea, Japan. It's a strange audio-experience when winners said their acceptance speech in Chinese, Mandarin, Korean and Japanese.
Uncle Boonmee is the first non East-Asia winner, and in the process helps lift the profile of Southeast Asian cinema up a few notches. The fact that AFA takes place in Hong Kong - a country with a long cinema history and now a strategic spot considering the rise of the film industry in China - highlights the dominance of East Asia in the general perception of "Asian cinema".
There are quibbles, though, since the AFA nominations seemed to ignore obvious talents and the strong East Asian tendency is palpable. Yet for the awards that have been furtively compared with the Oscars, the choices it have made so far are, at least, much more interesting, if not totally unconventional - like this year's best film. That's not a complaint anyway.
Technical Information:
Title: ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ/Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Year: 2010
Country: Thailand
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 5.89 GB
Length: 1:53:10
Programs used: DVD Decrypter, ImgBurn
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Video: MPEG2 @ ~8500 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Audio: Thai- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: English, Korean
Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras: Theatrical Trailer
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